New Mexico State coasts to home win over CSUN

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New Mexico State's Aggies cheer after teammate, Berrick JeanLouis, dunks the ball over California State Univerisity, Northridge's Lamine Diane during the second half of NMSU's game against CSUN, Wednesday, December 19, 2018. Aggies won 92-57. Josh Bachman/Sun-News

New Mexico State's Berrick JeanLouis, dunks the ball over California State Univerisity, Northridge's Lamine Diane during the second half of NMSU's game against CSUN, Wednesday, December 19, 2018. Aggies won 92-57. Josh Bachman/Sun-News

New Mexico State University's Eli Chuhua, pushes to the basket past Californai State University Northridge's Cameron Gottfried, during the first half of the game, Wednesday December 19, 2018 at the Pan American Center. Josh Bachman/Sun-News

New Mexico State's Keyon Jones, shoot the ball during the firts half of NMSU's game against California State University, Northridge, Wednesday December 19, 2018 at the Pan American Center. Josh Bachman/Sun-News

New Mexico State's Johnny Mccants, pushes past California State Univeristy Northridge's Elijah Harkless, during the second half of NMSU's game against CSUN, Wednesday, December 19, 2018 at the Pan American Center. Aggies won 92- 57. Josh Bachman/Sun-News

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New Mexico State University's Eli Chuhua, pushes to the basket past Californai State University Northridge's Cameron Gottfried, during the first half of the game, Wednesday December 19, 2018 at the Pan American Center.(Photo: Josh Bachman/Sun-News)Buy Photo

LAS CRUCES- The New Mexico State men’s basketball team has shown throughout the early part of the season that they are much more than a one-trick pony under head coach Chris Jans.

The trend remained the same Wednesday night as all 15 available players saw playing time in the first 20 minutes -- but it was the 3-point stroke that has come and gone in spurts this season that would end up being the theme of the night as the Aggies cruised to a 92-57 win over the Cal-State Northridge Matadors in front of 5,334 inside the Pan American Center.

NM State (9-2) used contributions from Keyon Jones and AJ Harris in the first half to take the lead for good just three minutes and 23 seconds into the game and grow it to as many as 21 before intermission.

All four of Jones’ first-half 3-pointers came on different back-to-back offensive sequences, including being the beneficiary of an impressive Harris’ steal and assist that came on intercepting a bounce pass as the last line of Aggie defense on a CSUN 2-for-1 fastbreak, forcing a Mark Gottfried timeout and bringing the crowd to its feet as the Aggie lead increased to double digits for the first time eight minutes into the game.

Jones ended the night with a career-high 21 points on a 7-of-11 performance from 3-point territory as a part of five Aggies that scored in double digits (Jones-21, Harris-11, Brown-10, Aurrecoechea-10, Chuha-10).

“We just have to stay ready – you never know when your number is going to get called,” Jones said, who has seen two starts on the year but has also played under 10 minutes on four different occasions. “He (Jans) always tells us in practice to stay ready and to stay motivated to play. He gets us in the gym every day and we had a little shot chart, so it had me feeling confident. My teammates especially kept telling me to shoot it, so I just kept shooting.”

CSUN (3-8) came into the night struggling to defend, allowing opposing teams to post an 83 point-per-game scoring average (last in the Big West Conference) along with a 39.7 percent clip from behind the arc and the Aggies feasted, knocking down a season-high 15 on the night.

The most encouraging facet of the Aggie offense came from their ability to take care of the basketball. Jans spoke about the team needing to cut down on their turnovers after Monday’s win over Northern Colorado and the team was able to do that, turning the ball over just eight times, most of which coming with the game well in hand.

“(Tonight) was just what the doctor ordered – after our last outing against Northern Colorado which we did not play very well in the second half, I was hopeful that we would play better today and we did,” Jans said after the game. “We had a low-turnover game and only gave up four offensive rebounds and the ball went through the net at a better rate (49.3 percent) than it had been, so it was just what we needed heading into the Vegas tournament.”

The Matadors tried man-to-man and zone defensive looks to try to see if anything would stick, but against a well-balanced team in NM State, it was a matter of picking their poison and though they did a respectable job taming the Aggies inside, the open 3-point looks they continuously allowed proved fatal.

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New Mexico State University's Eli Chuhua shoots a lay up over California State University Northridge's Lamine Diane, on Wednesday at the Pan American Center.(Photo: Josh Bachman/Sun-News)

“I was happy coming into the game knowing we were going to see some zone because it had been awhile – I thought we needed to get some work against it and I thought we handled it very well,” Jans said. “When we would pound it inside, they started throwing different bodies at us and I thought for the most part, our bigs were better than our guards in terms of handling it because everybody stares at the ball and with the other four guys, there’s a lack of movement that causes a lot of turnovers or poor spacing. We got of them (guards) about cutting a bit and giving us multiple options and they got better as the game went on.”

For the 10th time in 11 games, NM State head coach Chris Jans tinkered with the starting lineup (Buchanan, Zamora, Henry, Bobbitt and Chuha got the nod) but this game’s lineup was as surprising as any as Harris came off the bench for the first time this season.

“In terms of AJ not starting, he just had not been playing well as of late,” Jans said. “We thought we’d try to have him come off the bench and maybe that would spark him a little bit.”